By Alex Zhou
The “Grooming Contest by Sergio Villasanti” made its debut in 2014 in Brazil.
With a different way of thinking about the grooming competition, Sergio Villasanti idealized this competition, not only with the thought of a competition, but with the thought of a “meeting of friends”.
Sergio Villasanti was responsible for the first ever grooming contest in Brazil in the year 2000. The educational part was prevalent in this first contest and still is to this day in the competitions put on by Sergio.
These educational competitions are aimed at allowing the groomer to have more direct contact with the judges in order to obtain tips and teachings that could hardly be had in other competitions. The tips are always valuable to the competitors because they will know why they placed or why they did not, and this way they will be able to improve their future professional work.
In a climate of friendship, exchange of information, learning of new techniques and especially the will to learn, the competition limits its number of competitors so they can have time to exchange information and obtain a greater level of professionalism.
All judges who are invited to judge this competition are always of a high professional level, and the purpose is for the judge to feel comfortable and feel as if he/she were in his/her own home. Previous contest judges have included Jennifer Lee, Barbara Prueckel, Kathy Rose, Teri DiMarino, Jonatam Ardengui, Ana Beatriz Knoll and Lei Jianqin.
The number of competitors is growing year by year, so the format of the competition will have a change starting in 2019. But it will alway respect the educational format and exchange of information between competitors. Several product companies also offer seminars aimed at teaching new techniques to better qualify the groomers.
The pet market in Brazil is growing rapidly and many groomers seek to learn more and more so they can better their skills and professionalism, and thus be able to offer better quality work to the client.
In Brazil, they have a very large flow of dogs and cats in and out of grooming shops—some reaching around 100 animals per day. This encourages groomers to seek techniques that can increase their speed while offering better service. 